On the Internet, content hosting websites allow users to upload, view, and share digital content. Such digital content may include audio clips, movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Typically, users are directed to digital content on a content hosting site via a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) link shared by another user, or via a search for particular content on the content hosting site. The URL link clicked on by a user directs the user to a watch page that plays the digital content for the user.
When a user requests digital content, the user would like to view the digital content immediately, without having to wait for the digital content player to buffer or load the digital content. Generally, the digital content player requests contiguous portions, or chunks, of the digital content from the server storing the digital content. For example, the digital content player will first request the first 10 seconds of the digital content, then the second 10 seconds of the digital content, then the third 10 seconds of the digital content, etc. Therefore, the user does not have to wait for the digital content to play, load or buffer as long as the user plays the digital content in the same order that the digital content player is requesting the digital content from the server. However, if a user wants to skip a portion of the digital content while the digital content is playing, the user may have to wait for the next portion of the digital content to load because the digital content player may not have loaded the next portion of digital content yet.